Email Of The Day

An Iranian reader writes:

What happened in the last 72 hours of this campaign is one for history books. It was as if the sleeping beauty woke up at the last minute. Over 20 million Iranians have a voted for a guy who was the last man standing. He is not a Mousavi, but he is the one they knew voting for would be interpreted as a message of disapproval for the Supreme Leader – a big “no”, if you will. The humiliating third place for Jalili, the chief nuclear negotiator, was also a direct rejection of the handling of the nuclear file and the foreign policy of the leader and AhamdiNejad.

Until three days ago, no one would have guessed that we could have a centrist/reformist president with the full backing of former presidents Khatami and Hashemi, who will make the freedom of Mousavi and Karoubi very likely, who will bring back the experienced technocrats into the management of the government and insert some sanity into our foreign policy and day-to-day managing of the economy. But here we are.

Rouhani needs the boost that Khatami never got from the West and the neocons. Flexibility, lifting of sanctions and ultimate normalization of relations will now directly help a president that has to fight the hardliners and the massive economic problems all at the same time. Let’s hope Washington realizes that and doesn’t listen to likes of Josh Block who is already attacking the newly elected president and saying he is not “moderate” by AIPAC’s standard. Those guys will miss AhmadiNejad. It won’t be easy to use Rouhani for fear mongering.